


tastes like strawberries

by kate_button



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Getting Together, Ice Cream, M/M, POV Steve Harrington, Snark, Steve Harrington's Scoops Ahoy Uniform, Summer, Swimming Pools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:26:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23148460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_button/pseuds/kate_button
Summary: When Billy fucking Hargrove walks into Scoops Ahoy in his white Hawkins Pool tank top and his tiny little red lifeguard shorts, Steve trips over literally nothing, drops a tub of Rocky Road on the floor, and very nearly brains himself on the glass case covering the ice cream.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 41
Kudos: 739





	tastes like strawberries

**Author's Note:**

> look, this is pure self-indulgent summer fluff because i need it and i think everyone else does too. it originated from a conversation one million years ago about the weird collective headcanon in the harringrove fandom that steve has a fear of pools since barb and just kinda uhh evolved from there.

When Billy fucking Hargrove walks into Scoops Ahoy in his white Hawkins Pool tank top and his tiny little red lifeguard shorts, Steve trips over literally nothing, drops a tub of Rocky Road on the floor, and very nearly brains himself on the glass case covering the ice cream. Somehow. 

Robin stares at him. Eyebrows up. Utterly unimpressed. Then she rolls her eyes and retreats into the back without a word. Leaves Steve to clean up his mess.

Billy, having watched the whole disaster unfold from the top, just kinda smirks at him. Real amused. 

‘King Steve,’ he says.

It’s not Steve’s fault really. They’re gonna take the tub of Rocky Road out of his paycheck and Billy should be the one paying for it, honestly. Coming in here with those fucking legs. 

It’s not exactly fair. 

‘What are you doing here?’ Steve asks. He’s not flustered. He’s just got a puddle of Rocky Road melting on the floor and half a hard on about the light hair on Billy’s tanned calves. On his _thighs_. Which he can see, like, most of. Disappearing up under those tiny, tiny shorts.

He swallows. 

Billy’s smirk gets a little wider. 

‘Well, I was hoping for a scoop of Rocky Road, but…’

He’s a dick. Billy Hargrove is a dick. Steve knew that, he did, he just kinda, like. Forgot. He hasn’t seen him since the last day of school, has had nothing but vague flashes of curly blonde hair in his head right before he comes with his hand around his dick to remember him by. 

Billy’s a problem. Always been a problem. A smirking, smug, shitty problem. Steve tries to piece his brain back together enough to carry on a conversation with the asshole.

But like. The shorts. They’re _unfair_.

‘Yeah,’ he says, and stops looking at Billy’s legs. ‘Fresh outta Rocky Road unfortunately. Got about thirty other flavors you could choose from, though.’

Billy just looks at him. Grinning. It’s a lot. ‘What would you recommend?’

Dick. Like, Billy, obviously. Is a dick. But also, uh. 

He flushes. 

‘Coconut’s decent.’

‘Coconut.’ Billy says it like he’s skeptical.

See, it’s just _unfair_. He doesn’t go to the pool - doesn’t do pools. Has no interest. Has the opposite of interest. Has an aversion, really. Bad associations or whatever. But this is also the first he’s seen of Billy fucking Hargrove since graduation and he’s like. _Hot_. In his tiny little shorts. With his miles and miles of strong tanned legs just out there, making him crazy.

‘Listen, man, this fucking Rocky Road is like, starting to puddle. Just pick a flavor.’

Billy leans himself on the counter, puts his elbows down and bends at the waist and Steve’s gonna murder him. He’s gonna. He can see down his shirt. He’s never had this much of a crisis about being able to see down another man’s shirt before. Billy doesn’t even have tits. 

He does have exceptionally nice looking nipples, though. And a little smattering of blond hair between his pecs. Billy has pecs. It’s insane. Who actually _has pecs_? No one, that’s who. No one and Billy fucking Hargrove. 

Billy tsks at him, still very definitely smirking. Steve supposes he’s not being particularly subtle. There’s a lot of staring happening. Whatever. Billy knows he’s hot and always has. It’s like his whole thing. ‘You got a mouth on you, Harrington,’ Billy says.

And that, like. That’s flirting. Almost unmistakably. He’s been striking out left and right in this stupid sailor uniform but he’s not, like, blind. Billy’s eyes drop to his mouth and linger and he licks his lips before looking back up at Steve’s eyes. 

Steve’s shorts are too small for this shit. 

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Steve says, and is mildly impressed with himself, honestly. 

If the look on Billy’s face is anything to go by, he’s not the only one. Billy’s eyebrows have gone up, and his grin has gotten a little wider. ‘That so?’

‘Chock full of surprises, yeah. Listen, are you planning on buying anything or are you just gonna, like…’ Steve waves vaguely at _all that_. The leaning and the smirking and the being hot. 

Billy just kinda watches him Not Flail about it, real amused. ‘Or am I just gonna _what_ , Harrington?’

He’s obnoxious and Steve is annoyed. ‘You’re blocking the counter. Someone might want to actually order something.’

Billy looks back over his shoulder at the completely empty sitting area. Looks back at Steve. Cocks an eyebrow. 

Steve considers just like. Making out with him. Also hitting him. 

‘You trying to get rid of me?’

‘Customer Satisfaction Is Our Number One Priority At Scoops Ahoy!’ Steve parrots dutifully.

‘Yeah? You gonna satisfy me, Harrington?’

It’s awful. _Awful_. Billy is _terrible_ at pickup lines. Steve hates that it’s working for him.

He rolls his eyes. ‘You are not a customer. You haven’t bought anything. In fact, you’re like. Stealing company time, really, by proxy or whatever.’

Billy just looks at him, just looks and looks with that stupid grin and the stupid freckles on his stupid cheeks that Steve didn’t need to know he had. Billy’s such an asshole. ‘Fine. Gimme a scoop of vanilla. On a cone.’ 

‘Vanilla,’ Steve says, because really. 

‘Vanilla,’ Billy says, cocking an eyebrow in a very douchey way that’s half challenge, half, like, invitation, ‘you got a problem with that?’

The rocky road is slowly melting all over the floor like one of those lava flows. It’s not far from his shoes, now. Gonna be a real bitch to clean up. 

‘Chop chop, Captain.’

Steve glares. It’s probably comical, really, from Billy’s perspective. Steve aggressively scooping ice cream in a sailor costume. Not Staring at Billy’s freckles and the way his stupid hair is looking particularly curly and great this summer. He makes Billy a good cone, though. He does. Shoves it in his face and raises his eyebrows. ‘Buck fifty.’

Billy slides a five across the counter, and looks Steve dead in the eye as he licks a wide stripe up the side of his ice cream cone. Steve can see the melty off-white of it on his pink tongue. 

Motherfucker. 

‘Mmm,’ Billy says, licks his lips looking real satisfied. Mother _fucker_. ‘Thanks, Harrington. Keep the change.’

Then he turns and finds the booth with the best unobstructed view of the counter and plants his ass. Keeps looking at Steve. Keeps fellating his goddamn ice cream cone like the world’s biggest douchebag motherfucker. Steve hates him. Steve wants to shove that ice cream in his face and then lick it off. 

Then he’s just thinking about what else he could lick off Billy’s face and really, it’s just unfair. Billy’s got his pretty legs all stretched out and crossed at the ankles, lounging in his seat and watching Steve and getting melty white ice cream all over his lips just so he can make a show of licking it off. 

Steve gets a garbage can and the mop and tries very, very hard to ignore him while he cleans up the mess on the floor. Robin opens the shutters, takes one look at what is happening in the shop, and shuts them again. 

Steve thinks that’s fair.

-

The next day, Steve sits in the parking lot of the community pool, sucking on a cigarette and sweating and wondering if he’s really doing this. 

He’s really doing this. It’s just a pool. He used to be a swimmer, for fucks sake, used to be pretty damn good at it too. Used to love it. There are no monsters in this pool. None in his pool at home. There are no monsters in any pool. Barb cut her hand. The monsters like blood. The whole obsession he’s got about it is irrational and stupid and he’s over it. 

He pays his admission and walks into the pool and is assaulted by the scent of chlorine and sunscreen and he’s not over it. He’s not over it, but Billy is slouched down in his high chair with his sunglasses on and his knees spread looking like a dream and Steve thinks he could get over it. Thinks he could be convinced to get over it. 

Billy lifts his sunglasses and meets Steve’s eyes and grins, big and a little obnoxious and _hot_. Steve’s knees wobble just a little, just for a second, and he gets himself a lounger with a decent view of Billy’s lifeguard stand and strips his shirt off. He’s not gonna swim, but the sun’s good. Nice. He doesn’t mind this. 

Billy looks. Steve feels the heat of it in an entirely separate way to the way he feels the heat of the sun. Billy fucking Hargrove isn’t the only one who can do short shorts. Steve’s got legs for days too. Pulls his knees up and tucks his hand behind his head and tips his chin up, gives Billy something to see. 

Whatever. 

He’s not, like, having a bi crisis or anything. He already had that like a month ago after him and Robin accidentally got way too fucking high that one time. Secrets were shared. Moments were had. Friendships were forged. He’s thought a few times that maybe he should be a little more weird about it than he is, but he’s not. He’s cool with it, mostly. Doesn’t see a point in not being cool with it.

It had also explained a whole lot about all that shit that had gone down between him and Hargrove before school ended. The Billy shit had honestly fucked him up way worse than the bi shit. 

So anyway. Whatever if he wants to get a little slutty at the pool. Disrupting each other’s work days with sexually suggestive posturing seems to be what they’re doing these days. It’s marginally more fun than getting his ass kicked, anyway. 

The good news is he’s distracted enough getting stared at by Billy fucking Hargrove that he barely feels the anxiety about being this close to the pool. It’s a stupid fear. Of all the ways his upside-down related trauma could have manifested, the fact that it picked fear of pools is both absurd and annoying. It’s hot out. He wants to swim. Also the light reflects off the one in his backyard and up into his bedroom at night and it’s pretty fucked up that he’s gotta deal with that too. 

Anyway. Some little shithead cannonballs into the pool right in front of him and splashes water all over the place, all over _him_ , and he about jumps out of his skin because he’s too caught up looking at Billy to see it coming. Billy blows his whistle. Yells at the kid. Steve knows it’s his job and the kid should get yelled at because it’s not safe at all to get a running start and cannon ball into four feet of water at a public pool but he also can’t help but be grateful, like, personally. Kinda can’t help but think maybe he had something to do with the severity of Billy’s reaction, if the look on his face and the way his eyes flick over to him and linger when he’s done shaming the kid into an apology are any indication. 

Steve gives him a nod, stretches one leg out. Billy’s knees slip a little wider apart, and he nods back.

-

He’s not sulking. It would be stupid to sulk because it would be stupid to have expectations. Him and Billy have said a handful of words to each other, like, ever. There’s literally no reason for him to be bummed that the dickhead hasn’t shown up to make him drop more ice cream on the floor and get another inconvenient hard on at work.

Still, though. He can’t stop looking at the table where Billy sucked off an ice cream cone while looking him in the eye. 

He just kinda figured that maybe they would, like, take turns. Billy came to him to flirt and be obnoxious, he went to Billy to drape himself over a lounger and be obnoxious, and then Billy would come back to Scoops to put his elbows on the counter and regale Steve with more bad pickup lines. And be obnoxious. And hot. His usual shit, you know.

But it’s been four days, and nothing. 

He’s not sulking. 

‘Oh my god, you’ve _got_ to stop sulking,’ Robin says.

‘I’m not.’

‘You _are_ , and it’s pathetic. You’re being pathetic. Stop.’

‘I don’t think you’ve got any place to talk, Buckley. You spent years sulking about whatsherface.’

‘Okay, first off, screw you. Second, that’s different. She didn’t come in here and bat her pretty eyelashes at me and make all sorts of lewd comments in my general direction. You’re being pathetic. Go talk to him.’

‘No.’

‘Oh my _god_.’

‘It’s his turn!’

‘ _Oh my god_.’

Steve shoves the ice cream scoop into the tub of mint chocolate chip a little too aggressively and grumpily serves himself a bowl full. He’s not sulking.

‘Pa-the-tic,’ Robin says, and bops him on the head on her way to the back. He shoves a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth and frowns. 

He’s not sulking.

-

Dustin asks him to come to the pool. Actually, Dustin kind of demands that he comes to the pool, refuses to take no for an answer, pesters the hell out of him and won’t let him move on to serving the rest of the line of people that have piled up behind him until he agrees, so he agrees. Like, for the sake of his job or whatever. 

So Steve goes to the pool. Gets off his shift at four oclock and has six hormonal weirdos piling into his car by 4:15. 

The Camaro is in the parking lot. Steve tells the kids he’ll be in in a minute, smokes a cigarette and changes into his shorts with his legs hanging out the door, tosses his sailor shirt into the backseat and digs around for the tank top he knows is back there.

Billy’s not in his chair when Steve gets there. Steve chooses to ignore the pang of disappointment. He sits in the same lounger he sat in before, toes off his shoes and strips off his socks and thinks about how nice it’d be to put his feet in the water. 

He doesn’t. The sun is nice, though, lounging around after five hours on his feet. He closes his eyes and relaxes and doesn’t look around for Billy, lets the heat bake the artificial chill of Scoops Ahoy out of him. Dustin yells at him to come swim and Steve gives him the finger without opening his eyes and doesn’t bother to respond. He’s here. Those were Dustin’s terms.

He actually dozes a little, forgets all about how he’s not thinking about wondering about pining for Billy fucking Hargrove and just floats, tension of the day and any sour mood he may have been in (Not sulking. He wasn’t sulking.) draining away, sweated out here in the hot sun, little breeze occasionally dancing across his overheated skin. He’s within splashing distance of the pool, but the usual nagging buzzy anxiety about that is nowhere to be found. Progress, or whatever. 

So he dozes, drifts in and out of true consciousness, warm and content and relaxed, until the lounger next to him creaks and someone presses something very fucking cold to his side and scares the holy shit out of him. 

‘What the fu-’ he starts, jumping out of his skin, eyes flying open. 

Billy’s a fucking asshole is what it is. Sitting there all smug and calm, smiling at Steve like a total dick. ‘Chill out, princess,’ he says, and holds the Coke bottle out to Steve, ‘you looked thirsty.’

Steve glares, but takes it. 

‘What are you doing here?’ Billy asks, making himself right at home, settling in, tucking his hand behind his head. 

Steve’s heart is still racing from the adrenaline, but he relaxes back into his chair, pops the cap off the coke and takes a sip. It’s delicious. Cold and fizzy and perfect. Billy’s the worst. ‘What’s it look like?’

‘Looks like you’re doing your very best impression of the done-up moms that come here to ogle me every day. You never swim.’

Steve huffs, offended. ‘I’ve only come here to ogle you once. This time is purely coincidental. I’m here with the shitheads.’

Billy laughs, deep and abrupt enough that Steve knows it’s not an act, not forced at all. He made Billy laugh. It makes him smile. ‘Christ, Harrington.’

Billy’s got his head tipped back and his long, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles and his neck is a little shiny with sweat and Steve would very much like to get his mouth on every inch of him. He takes a sip of the coke Billy bought him. ‘Thanks for this,’ he says, tipping the bottle in Billy’s direction. 

‘I get a discount at concessions,’ Billy says, and then, after a long look that sweeps from Steve’s face down all the way down his body and then all the way back up that Steve can feel like it has physical weight to it, ‘you’re welcome.’

He’s not the only one who ogles. Billy’s spent at least as much time looking at him as he has at Billy. He tips his head back and tips the bottle of coke up and takes a couple swallows before setting it on the concrete next to his chair, tracing his finger around the opening of it. 

He doesn’t look at Billy, finds the kids in the pool and watches them instead while Billy’s eyes set his skin tingling. 

‘So you, what, come here to make sure they don’t drown? They’ve got lifeguards for that, you know.’

Steve smiles. It’s kinda fun, making Billy work for his attention. Making Billy show him how much he wants it. He tips his head, looks Billy up and down. ‘Oh, I know.’ 

Billy pulls the knee that’s farthest away from Steve up, arches his back a little like he’s stretching. What he’s doing is showing off. Steve resists the urge to roll his eyes. 

‘I like the heat. Kinda nice after slinging ice cream all day.’

‘Don’t gotta come here for the heat, Harrington. Rumor has it you’ve got a fancy pool of your own to lounge by.’

Steve’s stomach twists. ‘Maybe I like lounging by this one better.’

Billy rolls his eyes, cheeks dimpled in a half-exasperated smile. ‘My lunch break is over.’

Billy pushes himself up, and Steve’s gifted with Billy’s tanned thighs at eye level, close enough to touch. Blond hairs all the way up to where his shorts get in the way. His _shorts_. Steve swallows, drags his eyes up Billy’s body. Billy’s smirking, because of course he is. 

‘Again with the ogling. You could at least be subtle, Harrington.’ Billy crosses his arms over his chest, cocks a hip, and tsks at him. Steve has the absurd urge to pants him like a goddamn twelve year old. 

'Thought you were leaving,’ Steve says, and ogles some more as Billy laughs and does. 

-

‘Hey, dingus, you got a visitor!’ 

Steve only glares a little, considering he is in the freezer and Robin is at the counter and she can’t see it anyway. He rubs his hands together and blows into them to try to get some feeling back in his fingers. He thinks it’s maybe a little fucked up that he’s gotta think about bringing a pair of gloves to work in August, but the tubs of ice cream aren’t gonna organize themselves and his hands are white with cold, stiff at the joints and kinda numb and aching at the same time. 

He does _not_ trip this time when he sees Billy fucking Hargrove standing there in a cutoff Everlast crop top and his tiny little red lifeguard shorts, but it’s a near fucking thing. Robin gives him some eyebrow and a little smirk. Billy just grins at him.

‘Thanks, I think we’ve got it from here,’ Billy says to Robin, and Robin rolls her eyes, but heads toward the back. She mouths a bunch of stuff at him as she passes, complete with Very Serious Eyebrows. Steve ignores her. 

‘That shipment’s almost put away,’ he says to her, ‘if you wanna finish it up.’

‘But you’re so much _better_ at it,’ she says, gives him her best shitty little grin, and slips into the back.

‘So,’ Steve says. At least he’s not wearing the hat. He hates the hat. 

‘Isn’t there a whole thing you’re supposed to say? Ahoy something something?’

‘No.’ Steve crosses his arms over his chest, leans a hip against the counter. 

‘I’m _pretty sure_ there is.’

Billy’s smiling at him like they’re sharing a joke or something and it feels _great_ , makes Steve all dumb and happy and he’s smiling in spite of himself, can’t help it, literally powerless. He’s pissed about it so he rolls his eyes, but he also can’t be _that_ pissed. Billy came here just to bother him, ostensibly. It’s sweet. Annoying and stupid and sweet. 

‘Listen, Hargrove, I think we’ve talked about the ogling. At least the pool is on my way home. You have to drive out of your way to come here.’

Billy laughs, one of those surprised, head-tipped-back ones that really just get Steve in the chest, get him bubbly in his throat and his head like soda. ‘You’re awfully fucking sure of yourself, Harrington.’

A weird thing happens when he’s around Billy. It’s like he feeds off his shitty cockiness, like he can use it to bolster his own, like the two of them just build each other up, get each other going. It’s goddamn exhilarating is what it is. Never felt anything like it. ‘Got no reason not to be. You did start all this, you know.’

‘Hey. I just wanted an ice cream cone. You were the one that made it… messy.’

‘Oh, you are un _believable_ ,’ Steve says, and pokes one finger in Billy’s chest. Billy gets that same dark-eyed, hungry look in his eyes that he had the last time Steve tried that move back at the Byers’, and Steve would have a bit of a meltdown about it if he hadn’t already done that in the middle of the Billy-specific portion of his bi crisis. The realization that Billy probably woulda been satisfied with fucking him stupid in lieu of beating him unconscious that night was a doozy. Steve’s not entirely sure why it turns him on, but. 

Billy’s fingers wrap around his wrist, and everything kinda stops. The fucking mall could burn down around them and Steve wouldn’t even notice. Billy’s eyes are so blue. He could count the freckles on his cheekbones if he wanted to. Time doesn’t exist and Steve isn’t breathing and he can feel his heart pounding in his wrist under Billy’s fingers and he wonders if Billy can feel it too and Billy’s _mouth_ , christ, Billy’s pink lips are just parted and there’s a little moisture on them where they meet at the corners and Billy’s _looking_ at him, searching his face and the blue in them is disappearing to black and-

Someone clears their throat and Billy drops his wrist like it’s white hot, blinks and says ‘ _fuck_ ,’ under his breath, real quiet. Steve agrees. He glances at the mom standing a couple feet behind Billy, and she raises her eyebrows at him, annoyed. 

‘Uh,’ Steve says.

Billy nods jerkily, drags a hand through his hair. When he looks at Steve again, he looks a little bit more composed. Steve doesn’t like it. Wants to wipe any trace of put together off his face, make him fall apart. He’s looking at Steve like there’s something between them, though, something unspoken, a knowing or a. Steve still can’t fucking think, would absolutely fall back into Billy’s orbit and drown and ignore the world for however long Billy let him.

He takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes for just a second. 

It’s not even that it’s been a long time since he’s been touched by anyone but himself. It’s not that he’s been lonely, or desperately seeking a relationship. He did fine before Nancy and the Since has been hard, but that’s mostly because of the monsters and not having a ton of support in navigating what his life looks like with that knowledge, that experience. It’s not like there’s a guidebook. Support groups. 

Anyway. It’s not that. He’s been pretty fine, recently, actually. Robin has helped a lot, giving him exactly the right amount of shit, never taking him too seriously and dragging the hell out of him whenever he gets caught up in his shit and takes himself too seriously. This shitty job, for all it’s pitfalls and little annoyances has also helped. It’s something he did for himself, got not because of his hair or his father. He’s got his own money coming in, albeit at a slow trickle. Making vague plans for the future. 

So the shit with Billy isn’t, like, a void in his life that he’s desperate to fill. It’s not a desperate need that he’s misguidedly attaching to the only person that’s regarded him with any degree of passion in the last year. It’s not that.

It’s the way that that first goddamn night at the party Billy made him feel something that no one in this town, in his life ever has before. He’s spent a lot of time in the shit since he met Billy, real justifiably distracted by, like, an alternate dimension opening a crack in reality through the middle of his town and the consequences thereof, but things have been easier lately, given him little moments to consider other shit.

Like how Billy’s looking at him. Like how he doesn’t give that much of a shit that the woman behind him has her lips pressed together in an irritated little frown. Like how that hand around his wrist was the most exhilarating thing he’s felt in, like, ever. 

‘So, uh… can I get you something?’ he says. His voice sounds raked over gravel, a little unsteady.

Billy licks his lips and swallows, then nods. ‘You guys do to go?’

It’s hard to think. ‘Uh. Sure. Lids.’ 

Billy smiles, and Steve notices the dimples in his cheeks just like every time he’s gotten this smile out of him, feels a little breathless about it. Billy slides a five across the counter. ‘A bowl of strawberry. To go. You can bring it by the pool at nine after Heather leaves for the night.’

Steve’s mouth goes dry and his stomach twists and his body just shakes. ‘We don’t deliver.’

Billy pushes the bill over until his fingertips bump Steve’s. ‘You deliver.’

Fuck. 

Steve nods. ‘Nine.’

Billy looks happy, and Steve spins. 

-

The gate is unlocked when Steve gets there, and it creaks a little as he slips in and shuts it again. It’s quiet and mostly dark, the lampposts around the pool casting an orange glow on the empty loungers and lifeguard stands. The water’s lit up blue from the lights under the surface, and Steve feels a weird not-quite-anxiety about it. This night couldn’t be further from the night at his house, and the usual niggling pre-terror is nowhere to be found. It’s absence is confusing, and makes him anxious. 

It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid. The ice cream bowl is numbing his fingers.

‘Wasn’t sure you’d show,’ Billy says, startling him. 

He holds the little white paper bowl up, waves it around just a little. Billy’s not wearing a shirt, barefoot in his lifeguard shorts. He looks like a dream. ‘Delivery.’

Billy snorts out a little laugh, pads over to Steve and plucks the ice cream from his hand. ‘You wanna swim?’

Steve does. He does, but he hasn’t been in a pool since the summer before Barb.

Billy claps a hand on his shoulder and says ‘at least come put your feet in while we eat this.’

So Steve toes his shoes off and strips off his socks and follows Billy to the edge of the pool like he’s tethered to him, sits down and sticks his feet in the water like it’s nothing, like he does it all the time. 

His heart is beating fast and his skin feels prickly, but Billy’s taking the lid off the ice cream and Steve can’t be assed to care about the monsters that might be lurking at the edges of another dimension that meets this one under the surface of the water. 

Steve holds out the plastic spoon, and Billy raises his eyebrows and takes it. ‘You just bring the one?’

Steve shrugs. ‘Didn’t know you were planning on sharing.’

Billy shoves the spoon in the ice cream and then licks it off and honestly, there’s just no room left for Steve to be terrified of the upside down when Billy’s cleaning ice cream off a spoon with his tongue and sitting so close to Steve that their bare knees are touching. ‘Guess we’ll just have to share, then.’

Steve swallows. Billy scoops another little bite out onto the tip of the spoon and then looks at it, considering. 

Then he’s holding the spoon up between them, level with Steve’s mouth. ‘Open up.’

Which is exactly the moment that Steve’s dick starts to fill in, because, like, holy shit. He grips the edge of the pool and his head goes a little buzzy and then he just… opens up. Lets Billy slide the spoon past his lips. Licks the ice cream off it and watches the way that dark-eyed, time-stopping look comes back on Billy’s face as he pulls the spoon back. 

It’s so sweet, cold sugary strawberry and everything else is so _warm_ and Steve just can’t breathe.

Billy scoops another bite of ice cream onto the spoon and sticks it in his mouth and looks at Steve as he sucks the ice cream off it and there’s no irritated customer behind him to interrupt this, the pool is closed, everything is quiet and the moment doesn’t have to end until they end it, free to get thicker and thicker until it’s burned up all the oxygen in the atmosphere, really.

Billy scoops out another bite of ice cream and raises his eyebrows, questioning. Steve pulls one leg out of the water and up onto the deck, shifts around until he's facing Billy. His knee presses against Billy’s hip. His toes brush the side of his foot under the water. Billy smiles as he holds the bite of ice cream a little too far away for Steve to get at. 

He'll have to lean right into Billy's space to get his mouth around it, but Billy's just watching him and waiting and not moving at all.

Steve puts his hand on Billy's knee half to keep his balance and half to see what Billy does about it and leans over and takes it, and then looks Billy in the eye as he swirls it around and lets it melt in his mouth. Billy’s eyes are dark like they were over the counter at Scoops, like when he had his hand around Steve’s wrist. Steve takes his hand back, puts it on his own leg. 

‘Really didn’t think you were gonna come.’ Billy says around a mouthful of ice cream. Steve wants to lick it out of his mouth. Billy spreads his knees a little wider. Steve wants to touch him again, but he also kinda wants to make Billy ask for it.

‘Customer Satisfaction Is Our Number One Priority At Scoops Ahoy,’ Steve says, and Billy rolls his eyes, grinning around the ice cream spoon hanging out of his mouth.

‘You use that line on all the boys?' 

Steve’s mouth tastes like strawberries and sugar and all he can think about is that Billy’s does too, all he can see is the pink of his lips and the freckles on his cheeks in the blue light of the pool and the vein that runs down Billy’s bicep because he like _works out_ or whatever and Billy’s flirting, has been flirting for weeks and is sitting so close that Steve could reach out and feel the hair on Billy’s thighs with his own fingers and he’s never been so fucking nervous and thrilled and excited and self-conscious and he thinks maybe he’s never felt more like himself than he does in this moment, one foot in the pool and Billy fucking Hargrove looking at his mouth while he waits for Steve to make words come out of it. 

Billy smiles at him, a funny little lopsided thing that makes Steve’s heart beat fast and swell so big it clogs up his throat, and then he taps him on the nose with the plastic spoon and says ‘well?’ and Billy smiling at him makes him smile, makes him lick his lips and shake his head. 

‘You think if I used that line on all the boys I’d still be single?’

Billy grins, ducks his head and scoops out another bite of ice cream. ‘So why _did_ you come?’ 

Steve shrugs. His swings his leg a little in the water and his toes bump the side of Billy’s foot. ‘I think you know.’

‘Why don’t you tell me anyway.’

Steve plucks the spoon out of the ice cream and puts it in his mouth, looks at Billy’s jaw and his collarbones and the few little hairs on his chest, around his nipples. Looks at the soft little rolls around his middle cause of the way Billy’s slouching. The darker hair under his bellybutton. 

‘So, like, I’ve tried to figure out the timeline. I’m pretty sure that it started before that time in the showers, you remember? When Nancy was running around with Jonathan? Cause I’m _pretty sure_ you were flirting. While we were naked. In the showers at school. With Tommy. But I was also really fucking stupid and really fucking distracted, so who knows.’

‘I might’ve been,’ Billy admits.

‘Thought so. You weren’t very good at it. Still aren’t, honestly. Your lines are garbage. Also, like, you don’t actually have to be mean to boys you like, you know.’

‘But I _didn’t_ like you. Not even sure I like you now.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s mutual. You’re an asshole. But I also, like, can’t stop thinking about _these_ ,’ he plucks at Billy’s red little shorts where they’re stretched over his thigh, ‘so.’

‘That’s gay, Harrington.’

‘What’s _gay_ is the way you sucked that ice cream off when you came in to my work and cost me thirty bucks off my paycheck.’

Billy laughs. ‘You cost yourself thirty bucks off your paycheck. I just made it worth your while.’

‘Oh yeah?’ he kicks Billy lightly under the water, ‘that what you’re going with? You think watching you put on a show with an ice cream cone is worth thirty bucks?’

‘You telling me it’s not?’

‘You’re a dick.’

‘And yet here you are.’

Steve puts his hand back on Billy’s knee, shifts himself a little closer. Billy doesn’t move away, leans in a little closer, even. Turns, a little. Hooks his ankle under Steve’s in the water. 

‘And yet here I am.’

Billy scoops a melty bite of ice cream out of the tub, licks it off his lips when it gets a little all over the place. ‘So. You don’t swim.’

‘Uh.’

‘Well,’ Billy says, sets aside the ice cream and holds onto Steve’s wrist just a beat too long as he removes his hand from his knee, ‘I suppose you can just watch, then. Help yourself to the ice cream.’

He’s the worst. Billy is the worst, quick flash of teeth as he grins and then he slides into the pool, dunks his head and comes back up and pushes his hair back out of his face. He’s even worse all wet. Steve’s mouth waters. He twists around and puts his other foot back in the pool and eats Billy’s ice cream off Billy’s spoon and thinks way too much about how much it’s been in Billy’s strawberry-pink mouth.

‘You’re really not gonna come in with me?’ Billy says.

Steve waves the mostly- empty tub of ice cream. ‘There’s ice cream up here.’

Then Billy gets this mischievous little look on his face and swims back a little closer. ‘Even if I do this?’ 

And then he reaches down under the water and shimmies out of his shorts and throws them up on the deck next to Steve. Steve could kill him. They splash some water on his knees when they land on the concrete. 

‘Come on.’ Billy swims over, treads water between Steve’s knees, wraps his hands around the backs of his calves. ‘Why don’t you swim?’

Steve thinks about it for a minute. Billy’s thumbs brush back and forth on his shins. 

He could tell Billy the truth. He deserves to know. It’s been quiet since the last time but Steve’s not actually an idiot - he knows it probably won’t be forever. Billy’s close enough to it that he’s almost certainly gonna get mixed up in it next time.

‘Long story. Uh. Got some, like, I don’t know, trauma or whatever? And my shitty subconscious has for some reason decided that swimming pools are, um, dangerous. I guess.’ He kicks his legs in the water a little. ‘This? Is actually progress, believe it or not.’

‘Tommy says you were on the swim team.’

‘I was. Through junior year, yeah.’

‘Says you were good. Said you were good at basketball too, though. He’s biased. Thinks you’re good at everything.’

‘Thinks I’m pretty shit at being a best friend, apparently.’ Him and Tommy have barely spoken since Billy happened. He misses him sometimes. Got Robin, now, got Nancy and Jonathan and the shitheads, but it’s not the same. 

‘Please,’ Billy says, actually rolling his eyes, ‘he never shuts up about you. Like, still. It would be pathetic if-’ Billy cuts himself off, bites his lip and shakes his head and Steve kinda wants to know what he was gonna say, ‘anyway. Don’t worry, he’s still obsessed with you.’ Billy runs one hand up the back of Steve’s calf, pulls the other out and flicks some water at him. ‘So you quit swimming.’

‘I quit swimming. What do you mean Tommy’s _still_ obsessed with me?’

‘You miss it?’ 

‘Tommy being obsessed with me?’

‘ _Swimming_ , asshole.’

Steve grins. ‘Yeah. I mean, sometimes, yeah.’

Billy lets go of his leg and pushes off the wall and kicks back a little ways.

‘You should do it then. Come on. Get in here.’

‘Billy-’

‘It’ll be okay. I promise. Take your shirt off.’

Steve’s heart is beating faster but Billy looks so good, and Steve _feels_ good, feels like maybe he could let Billy coax him into this, follow him into it the same way he’s followed him into the rest.

It’s stupid, anyway. He pulls off his shirt. It’s a stupid, irrational fear that doesn’t even make sense. He loves swimming. He loves the feeling of sliding into the cool water when the nights are hot like tonight. Loves laying back and looking at the stars while the water makes everything sound muffled and far away. 

Also, Billy’s smiling at him, treading water and looking him over, _staring_ , like he has as hard a time keeping his eyes off Steve as Steve has keeping his eyes off him. ‘You just wanna get me outta my clothes.’

Billy laughs. ‘There are easier ways to get you outta your clothes, Harrington. And anyway, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’

‘I’m interested in hearing more about these easier ways you’ve supposedly got to get me outta my clothes, actually.’

‘Come in here and maybe I’ll tell you.’

And honestly, fuck it. Worst thing that happens is he freaks out and gets out and never goes in a pool again. He doesn’t have a ton to lose, and Billy’s naked. Smiling. ‘Fuck it,’ Steve says, undoes his shorts and shimmies out of them, ‘fine.’ He tosses his shorts next to Billy’s and closes his eyes and slides in the water and doesn’t freak out. It feels amazing, actually. Terrifying, but, like wonderful. Then he feels the water move around him and _then_ he feels Billy’s hand on his waist and monsters might be real and one of them might have killed Barb in the upside-down version of his backyard but they’re not _in_ the upside down, they’re _here,_ and Billy’s _touching_ him again, doing that thing where he makes all Steve’s nerves tingle at once and his breath come too quick and his heart race and then he opens his eyes and. And Billy does that _other_ that thing where he, like, stops time, where nothing else in the world exists except the way the blue light from the pool makes his skin glow and the way his eyelashes look all wet from the pool water and the way his hand feels on Steve’s waist and god, Steve wants. Wants a thousand more nights in a thousand more pools and a thousand more moments just like this one.

‘You did it,’ Billy says, low and soft. 

Steve swallows, nods. He can’t stop looking at Billy’s mouth. 

‘And?’

‘And you’re distracting enough that I don’t feel like I’m gonna die, so.’

‘You’re not gonna die.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m distracting?’

‘I mean, you’re naked. You’re distracting when you’re not naked. I’m lucky my boss literally never comes to the store or you’d probably have gotten me fired.’

‘Because I’m distracting.’

‘Look, your shorts are _really short_ is all I’m saying. You’ve got. Nice legs. And I know you know that, I know you know exactly how fucking stupid you make me. You do it on purpose. I’m not _actually_ stupid.’

‘I know that.’

And that puts a happy little lump in his throat, makes him feels like his eyes might prickle if Billy keeps this shit up. Being _nice_. _Seeing_ him. It’s not entirely fair. ‘God, you’re the worst.’

‘Know that too. Still think you’re gonna let me kiss you.’

‘God, yeah.’ 

It’s nothing like Steve expects it to be, and it, like, changes his fucking life or something. Billy kisses him like he’s kissed him a hundred times before, slots their lips together easy and doesn’t linger too long, doesn’t take it deeper, just like sets off fireworks all up and down Steve’s spine and makes his brain stop working _completely_ and makes Steve think he’d happily clean up a thousand tubs of rocky road off the floor if it meant that Billy was there licking an ice cream watching him do it, that he’d get in any swimming pool to get more of this.

Billy starts smiling before he even pulls away, and Steve’s head just spins. 

‘You happy you got in the pool?’

Steve licks the taste of Billy off his lips, spit and chlorine and strawberries and cigarettes and sugar and nods, just once. ‘Pool’s alright, yeah.’

‘It’s, like, exposure therapy.’

‘Exposure therapy.’

‘Mhm.’

‘Okay. Right. Sure.’

-

Robin’s eyes narrow as soon as she sees him, and Steve thinks that’s probably fair. He can’t stop grinning. He’s also wearing a Hawkins Community Pool hoodie over his uniform top. 

‘So, this is like a _thing_ now?’ she asks, waving her hand at, like, _all that_.

‘Looks that way.’

‘So you’re done being fucking annoying about it?’

‘I mean, I really doubt it.’

She sighs. ‘I can’t believe you’re wearing his clothes. Honestly. Pathetic.’

‘Smells good.’

‘ _Gross_.’

‘You wanted this. Like, you actively encouraged it.’

‘You were moping. This, while pathetic, is actually an improvement.’

Steve strips off Billy’s hoodie and fills out his timecard and still can’t really stop smiling. 

‘Is that a hickey?’

‘Sure is.’

‘ _Gross_ ,’ Robin says, but she’s smiling a little bit too. ‘You seem happy.’

‘I went swimming.’

Robin’s eyebrows go up, and her smile gets bigger. ‘Huh. Well then.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So he’s, like, actually _good for you_?’

‘I really think he might be.’

Robin considers it for a moment, then shrugs and goes back to wiping down the counters. 

An hour later, Billy stops by on his way to the pool. He stares at Steve’s mouth and licks his lips and orders a strawberry ice cream cone and sits in the same booth he sat in that first day and keeps Steve company until he’s only got ten minutes to make the fifteen minute drive to the pool and Steve feels crazy, feels happy bubbly wild, feels giddy and hot and perfect and Billy rolls his eyes at him even as his cheeks are a little pink under all his freckles and whatever, Steve doesn’t even care. 

‘Always with the ogling, Harrington,’ Billy says, sliding out of the booth and making his way back to the counter, ‘people are gonna talk.’

‘You came here specifically to get ogled. You knew what you were signing up for.’

Billy grins. ‘I mean, not _just_ to get ogled. You know how I feel about your little costume.’

‘You’re a dick.’

‘You don’t mind. I’m gonna be late.’

‘You absolutely are.’

‘Worth it. I’m off at nine again.’

‘That so.’

‘I could leave the gate unlocked. If you feel like a swim.’

Billy’s leaned across the counter, close enough to kiss and smiling in that way that sets like a hundred butterflies loose in Steve’s belly. ‘I might stop by.’

Billy beams at him, all teeth and sunshine and dimples. He glances over his shoulder, looks around the sitting room, then leans over and pecks a quick kiss onto Steve lips, shorts out his brain and pulls a hot red blush to his cheeks just like that. ‘Looking forward to it.’

‘I said _might_ ,’ Steve says, but Billy’s already walking away. Grinning.

‘You’ll be there.’

**Author's Note:**

> [i'm on tumblr.](https://un-buttoned.tumblr.com/)


End file.
